deadly cured human rights activists accuse the pharmaceutical giants of using people in india as human guinea pigs as the number who die in drug trials in the country soars. shadowy influences newly declassified documents reveal

israel's covert attempts at shaping the u.s. media agenda and american policy in the middle east. and judgement day we've just learned that the u.s. has filed a new extradition bid and the court is expected to rule on the old bid today for a russian businessman victor boot held for more than two years over allegations he's a supplied on to the colombian rebels meanwhile the u.s. has now filed this new big on new charge it's. the true pioneers it's fifty years and since that two dogs up from the soviet union became the first living creatures to survive space travel paving the way for future exploration. and that's a look at our headlines next over to our washington studios for a distinctive look at american stories including privacy problems in california and a troop withdrawal from iraq all that much more in the alley on the show with host of the ottoman koskie only here on r.t.

. we've got. the biggest issues getting voice seems to face with the news makers. welcome to be alone a show where you get the real headlines with none of the mersey are coming alive out of washington d.c. now last night the media lit up with the news of the war in iraq is over the last combo combat brigade left the country but is it really over fifty thousand troops are still being left behind so many of the perspective of vote vets dot org jon soltz and what if you say now google c.e.o. eric schmidt has come forward with new comments suggesting that the youth should just change their name so they can hide from their social networking past so that really the only way to escape from your incriminating facebook photos we're going to speak with our team producer lucy catherine of now next how private are your

cell phone conversations one hacker out of san francisco has created a cell phone station to listen in on calls for only fifteen hundred dollars so how did he do it we're going to ask the hacker himself then the city of chicago is overturned its gun ban because of a supreme court ruling deeming its laws unconstitutional but with all the new rules in place to purchase a gun some residents claim that it's just as hard to obtain one as if it was still banned altogether so the city facing an endless battle i'm going to speak with retired sergeant jim hansen and get this poll one in five americans think that obama is a muslim anyone who's done their research knows of the president is not yet more people are beginning to think that he is so what can the white house do at this point we'll tackle that one at the end of the show but now let's move on today's top story. seven and a half years after the us invasion of iraq the last combat brigade has officially

left the country now if you watched the mainstream media last night you would have thought that this means the war's over. as soon as all the soldiers leave iraq operation iraqi freedom the combat mission in iraq will be over we need more military history the last of america's combat three times you say up to seven years because you could push the war made their way out to the right i really significant milestone george is truly historic watching those stryker vehicles we have a rocket drive out of the rock into kuwait you know. there are a. combat soldier toss it to kuwait gets the gates are closing right now they strike the passing right now. represent the last american combat troops in iraq. but is this anything more than a symbolic exit it was caught on film let's put it this way obama put the deadline for combat troops to leave as august thirty first and even though this was the last

brigade there's still a scattering of about six thousand combat troops in the country to have to pack up in the next two weeks and once they're gone well fifty thousand more americans will still be left behind they'll have guns there still troops but hopefully they won't have to use those guns so how do we look at this last combat brigades exit and once they are gone how do we look at the iraq that they're leaving behind earlier i caught up with jon soltz co-founder and chair of vote vets dot org and i first asked him if the media had jumped the gun on this story and acted like the last combat brigade leaving was really the end of the war. the sick the six thousand troops that are left over that's that standard in every operation you're always going to have an advance party. a party that stays at the end after i'm gone so they're just transitioning over paperwork property equipment all that as if that's totally normal but it's not a little premature. then to say the last troops in the combat brigades are going to combat brigades in fact have left the quaid and that is worth

a lot i mean that certainly for me it was it was humbling to watch and in the way that the left was great it wasn't like a vietnam scenario where people were killed on the helicopters but i think also very just a tad premature because you have fifty thousand troops that are still in iraq now just because you're a combat unit doesn't mean there's not a combat mission or combat troops or you could be an infantry man or you can be you know somebody is involved in artillery or you know military police which is almost a combat role in iraq and be assigned to training the iraqi army you could also be a truck driver in iraq and lose a quicker from point a to point b. and we've got tons of equipment we have to move around this country so these soldiers are going to be inflicted in a combat situation one in three troops in iraq down the road so it's still very dangerous and i think where the united states has had the huge so huge problems in our foreign policy has been when america thinks we're not at war i bring back the marine corps barracks bombings in beirut somalia in one thousand nine hundred two and america thinks wars are over and americans are dying and i think it's premature to say that the war in iraq for the united states is over even with these combat

brigades of because these troops are still in danger but that's my question here is you know do you think that the media is is over hyping this sensationalizing it a little bit perhaps because i mean in the war isn't over fifty thousand people that are going be left behind is still a lot of i think it's great that the the press is reporting it and it's true the combat brigades are gone that is consistent with the sofa i think the president deserves credit because last week there was a lot of violence in iraq the surge was an utter failure for the united states almost worse than the invasion because there's been no political reconciliation in iraq so the problems exist but you have to remember who's promoting this theory that combat troops are gone is being promoted by the american government because there is ok a situation in afghanistan the united states right now that isn't popular so there's a lot of reasons that i think people are pushing that story now if they push that story too far and twist troops continue to die in iraq well there will be you know continue a backlash there as well so i i think. the what's pushing the story is domestic politics more than anything else well of course they would live it to be

a success unfortunate like you said there is of iraq is still incredibly violent just last week there was an attack on the army recruitment base there you know i mean it's this is not as stable country does not have a stable government and so if we look at the figures you know i mean we think about the fact that estimates of the total cost of this war three trillion dollars keeping those fifty thousand troops there until the end of two thousand and eleven if that supposedly when they leave is going to cost almost thirteen billion more than four thousand u.s. troops have died so what do we get after all of this if you know all of these numbers that i've just laid out where you sit where you stand if you're shia in the south or your d.n.a. in baghdad or you're a kurd the north you're pretty happy with the fact that saddam hussein is an empowered the biggest misconception that americans have and i know the rest of the world doesn't so a lot of people watching this program probably understand better than people the united states do if there was always a war in iraq there was a warning iraq prior to our intervention i use it here and tell you that as someone who fought the war that was probably the greatest military error in my nation's

history to engage in this conflict in this interventionism but if you are one of these people on the ground who is a shia whose family have been killed by saddam hussein or forced to fight a war that you didn't want to against iran well then you know you look at it differently so where you sits where used in our military it's it's strained us it's cost our country choice of dollars it's her credibility in the world but when you start looking at facts and why we do things you have to start looking at who's who's the person giving that argument as a military person i don't think it was worth one dead us soldier if the context for america being involved in wars throughout the world was humanitarian ism we would be in about fifty different countries in the world right now here now tell me this do you think that these fifty thousand troops will actually leave by the end of two thousand and eleven they have to think they're going to be gone absolutely a large chunk of them or gone because the president in this country is going to what's going to happen after this midterm election you know we have a very big on employer. issues in the united states it's driving political voters have given us d.m. strategy that he has chosen is a bad strategy is

a bad strategy because he has taken we have given it to mr berman and the mission to a pro corps our mission is invested his political chips in afghanistan on the idea that he can that he can hold terrain in afghanistan and get karzai to be on his side that in itself will cause tremendous problems and everybody is focusing on afghanistan you know the majority of the population if they even care about the war are wars other two hundred are going on only focus on afghanistan so tell me just ask you that a year ago it will iraq for get about the fifty thousand troops that are there i mean you know yesterday we were talking about what if we just close bases as a way to cut defense spending means we have fifty thousand people in japan we have fifty thousand people in germany tail. i think there's a lot of any americans they probably i was stationed in germany i think there's a lot of reasons have bases around the world i think what's more important than bases around the world is how we project our force throughout the world the united states best leverage in diplomacy is these bases the best the red the the best leverage that you have in diplomacy is the threat of force not the use of force

that's why we were successful in kosovo because we threatened a ground invasion while we were successful in bosnia we said if you if you agree to a resolution we will then use our forces based in europe as part of the nato agreement my point about iraq on why these troops have to leave is it's a sofa agreement president obama did not and the iraq war he has not changed the plan that was given to him by his predecessor but this is ministration has to promote success in iraq because they will continue to face problems in afghanistan that will be the the largest reason why he will be sure to pull these troops out of iraq by the end of two thousand and eleven ok let me ask you this last question because as well as the fifty thousand troops that are being there there's also seven thousand contractors security contractors that are going to be there who are under is probably much higher i mean they are also controlled by the state department and so in essence are these contractors since they're the security guys are they going to be protecting the troops in the ones that are actually fighting and getting that it's interesting you give a seven thousand state department because that's part of the contract is just

protecting the state department that doesn't count all the the kellogg brown and root all become the reason we have so many contractors because president bush was the first president in the history of our country not to increase the size of the army in a war with no end state so there's who knows how many contractors i can tell you this there are units that were supposed to go to iraq next year that have been taken off of the mobilization there are still units that are going to go to iraq next year to help take units out there's a lot more contractors and seven thousand in iraq right now well these are just state department figures as i said you know at this moment it's as if the state department is taking over so i'm wondering if you know the obama administration can say i'm done and wash my hands of those in the department job john we've got to wrap it up but i want to thank you for being here you know it's definitely premature to cause. it's very end. thanks. still to come on tonight's show there's a new movement out there to take on the tea party protesters i'm going to go m.i.a. on some tea baggers here in d.c. so stick around for some fun and the c.e.o. of google says it's amazing you might have to change their names in the future to

hide from their online history so how we lost so much of our price privacy this is what it's come to we're going to cross the topic in just a moment. every month we give you the future we'll do understand how we'll get there tomorrow. best in science and technology from across russia and around the world join knology update on our jeep. the tea party we've talked about them posted interviews about them and the with them and we feel them just seem a little bit on this show you know this show has no qualms with calling them out

for their contradictory views and it looks like someone else out there who agrees with us the agenda project has started a campaign called f t a way to say that normal americans won't put up with that radical group anymore well i thought their campaign was a great way to put those tea baggers in their place but i gotta admit it was me i'd probably take a much more aggressive approach. to bagger. do you.

really. what can i say am i a is born free video really inspired me to get a little angry now i wouldn't actually have tea bags down anyone's throat i'm a peaceful person but you know that is the great part about television i get to at least act out but most people only dream. now google c.e.o. eric schmidt has become to tory's for his statements as of late you know things like claiming that google should be trusted over any government to have your

personal information or then again there was this one. if you have something that you don't want anyone to know maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place but if you really need that kind of privacy the reality is that search engines including google do retain this information for some time. that's right according to him you should just assume that every little thing you do is going to be tracked so just help yourself out and don't be an idiot but now comes the statement the really takes the cake eric schmidt is now suggesting that in the future young people should be entitled to change their identities an order to escape their midst . which was posted all over the internet yet in order to deal with today's technological age you should just change your name once you grow up it's not really what this world has come to that we now have to run away from the internet well joining me to discuss it is our team producer lucy catherine and some teabag. i am i come in peace this time around let's begin with this remark here that he says

that young people in the future will have to change their names do you find that is disturbing as i know a brilliant baby google should just help us name or children when they're born and give us little temporary google names so we can change in adulthood when we become responsible and don't post dirty pictures of ourselves online i mean no i find this remark very very disturbing but more so disturbing because of who it's coming from i mean essentially the c.e.o. of history's greatest privacy killing machine google you know this is a company that is successful because it knows so much information about us i mean they read our emails they know what we browse for they know where we live and where we're going through google maps and so to have this much this vast amount of personal information about us really makes it difficult for for google to you know control sort of say oh it's all up to you whether this information about you is bad or not i mean the fact of the matter with google is that in this statement what eric schmidt is saying to me is hey my company is not going to do anything in terms

of storing less info about you so it's on you if you don't like what's out there and then ducking responsibility is not only on you i like you know this entire interview he puts a lot of blame on facebook on my space so it's all those social networking sites all those other than all those other sites but they were. to take any of the blame for themselves and get real i just i just i don't totally agree and i think google is in the same exact boat as apple and facebook and my space and personal account google is coming out with its own social networking site there's also buzz which failed in part because of privacy issues so that a little bit of research yell is that facebook and they are you know this is not what i found interesting because i think our generation really is the first to have these social networking sites available to us and facebook started when i first went to college and the other day i was having a conversation with someone who is a little older than me and they very much you know in the era of eric schmidt also said well you should've known better than to post pictures of yourself on the

internet but i don't i mean did people like us you know when you were seventeen eighteen and you have this this new thing available to you on the internet where you could contact and communicate with your friends did we know any better do you think that our generation kind of got chips i mean no i don't think we knew any better i think it's a constantly evolving thing that's changing the way we define privacy and identity and ourselves you know i don't think that it's because of some evil conspiracy planned by bad technology companies i think it's just a natural evolution of how the internet affects our lives but the same time it's a two way street you know just like we need to be a little bit more careful about what we post online google and other companies have to be more careful about what they do with our information and how they store it because i mean it's one thing to you know post photos of yourself taking up some college and get all upset about it later i mean yeah you did something stupid and you should've done it is right in that regard but what about when the concept of right and wrong isn't as clearly cut or defined i mean you know whistleblowers human rights workers to use

a historical example you know if. slavery was still legal and you know you had photos of yourself with some african-american people and somehow the government used that to crack down i mean you know the the point is google doesn't get to decide what's bad and so it needs to be a lot more careful and responsible the info that i have is yeah i mean i. i think that we've definitely got experimented on you know. it is one big experiment is running through a series of tubes. let's not make fun it's ok now here's a statement that i think really was the scariest thing i've ever heard so i just want your response google's eric schmidt also said in regards to how much google knows about its users that i actually think most people don't want google to answer their questions they want google to tell them what they should be doing next i think it's in currently arrogant and frightening but really arrogant i mean to assume that google somehow by collecting all this vast amounts of information on us wants to be able to predict what exactly those that will want and given to us you know in the sense that we don't know better ourselves is just ridiculous i mean

well it's the little things of god and eric schmidt also obvious areas meant thinks that he is god of the company which is google but i think eventually is going to backfire and they're going to have to change their i mean you just have to be careful who you read these kinds of things are very slow to come on tonight's show what if we told you that somebody could be listening to your conversations even though you've been told they're encrypted one hacker found a way around it and we're going to speak to him after the break. through is that so much. i mean you can see these people are hearing the speech but obviously coming to an internet based social networks are changing the way. we're also.

today for those of you who didn't know is the anniversary of the passing of the nineteenth amendment the member that gave women the right to vote so today should be thought of as a day to celebrate equality and you know we all know that when it comes to salaries well quality among sexes is far from here in fact for every dollar a man earns a woman today still only makes seventy seven cents to that and sure being a career woman is usually a little different than being career man women are usually the ones that have children that raise those children that sacrifice in order to have a family but here's something that really got my blood boiling today on the chamber of commerce's blog there director of communications brad pac decided to pay homage to the nineteenth amendment by blaming the pay gap between men and women on women that's right according to him there is no need for bold legislative action to

loving level the playing field women just need to make smarter choices he actually said that everything would be easily fixed if women just chose the right places to work and the right partner at home because that's the problem right women are just choosing bad professions like teaching and nursing instead of business and choosing poor men to marry instead a rich one is if you're a communications director you have to be kidding me now go ahead you guys can call this a feminist rant even though it's not just asking for someone to be a little honest but all i can say is that i think this man should be fired and if he ever does get hired again pay him less than all the other men in the office and then let's see what he has to say. now moving on from our previous discussion about your life being tracked on the internet you can at least feel at ease knowing that the average joe can't listen in to your phone calls right that's just reserved for the cia and the f.b.i. well not so much one hackers crave the cell phone station that allows him to trick

your phone service provider and intercept even your encrypted calls to listen in this kind of thing it used to cost several hundreds of thousands of dollars perhaps even millions for law enforcement agencies to do but now thanks to this hackers homegrown device costs only fifteen hundred bucks so should we all be shaking in our boots earlier i caught up with security researcher chris paget from san francisco and like i said this professional sport cell phone spyware does already exist and it was a lot of money so my first question to him was how he managed to do it for just fifteen hundred bucks. it's its own revolves around a device called the universal software radiographs and this is open source hardware platform for talking radio effectively that the computer does all of the hard work figuring out what the radio signal should look like and then send it over u.s.b. to the us on the. it's very powerful it's very flexible and it allows you to do

a lot of things so. the key to the site the key to building a cell phone interceptor so cheap is like you say the u.s. open here and then all of the open source software that's available for it but you know in very simple terms for us regular folk how would you explain that this works i mean can any average joe get one of the devices and essentially make their own cell phone tower. yeah that's that's absolutely the case the fundamental root of the problem is that some cellphones don't make sure that the network that they're talking to is is the correct network that authenticate the network so yeah anyone that has access to the right equipment can just put up a cellphone tower and start intercepting cell phone calls. you know why did you do this and i'm very curious as to what you're planning to do with this technology so the reason i did this was just to show that it can be done i got to have

a lot of pete back about the presentation since i got up on stage and it from people saying well you know i thought cell phones were more secure than that the reality is that these systems have been available for twenty years or more almost as long as cell phones have so shouldn't be emus to people that their cell phones can be intercepted in this way that the big difference about what i've done is lowered the cost of it quite significantly these things typically cost about a million dollars if you buy them commercially well i mean that's the scary part thing right is that everyone assumes that this is something that's very hard to do the cell phones are more secure that perhaps only the government has the capability to really infiltrate into your phone calls and now you've got it for fifteen hundred dollars do you feel that it's right that you they you did that necessarily the you made it so easy to explain to people how to you know get into someone else's fault. i'm not sure that i agree that i have i've showed people how to do it

i showed people that it can be done but i didn't didn't release any of the software that they used to defcon and i'm not actually planning to so i'm not kind of planning to put this in people's hands that they can actually go out and do it the point is that when banks are considering like internet banking applications that you know maybe they've got a new version that runs over s.m.s. they need to be aware that these attacks exist and that they can be executed for such little amounts of money so that they can build their systems appropriately in response to that knowledge and i say that the whole goal of the presentation was just to get the word out that cell phones really are secure now tell me this have you been approached by you know the cia or the f.b.i. since he made this presentation i have been approached by some folks in the government it's very early stages yet to see where it's going to go but they're certainly interested yeah you got them all excited about this so that's how we have

how this is illegal what you're dealing. so the the actual core of it the radio portion runs on an amateur radio band so i have a second transmitter that sends out my call sign and it's all it's all completely legal in terms of an amateur radio transmission and then for the actual demonstration i was on stage at defcon put signs up everywhere saying that you know cell phone calls are going to be intercepted if anyone did connect to the network and tried to make a call there was a an in call recording saying that things were being intercepted obviously this is things that normal bad guy wouldn't do that just made a little more difficult for my demo but we went to some place significant lengths to make sure that we were you know complying with all the various spectrum rules and not intercepting any cell phone calls from people that didn't know that was happening. lastly chris tell me how i can predict how i can protect myself from somebody like you is there anything i can do to keep my cell phone secure i know

that it's three g. and so far you only use the two g. technology but you can also change that make it a day or the three d. into two g. is that right that's right i can i can i can what's called jamming the band i mean flexibly broadcast noise over the entire three d. bands that your cell phone can't see the signal from the tower in that case it will drop down to two g. which is g.s. them and again was wonderful to my equipment so the only the only two real defenses that you have are firstly making sure that you've got that three g. icon up in your phone and if you don't see that then there is a chance that you could have your calls intercepted and secondly for corporations and government entities things like that i'd recommend some of the products out there for cell phone encryption there's a number of products where you put an application on your phone and it will it will talking crypted voice calls to another phone with the same software i'm quite keen on the recommending these things into a corporation.